Contents

Botswana

Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has been trying to
move Bushmen out of the Central Kalahari Game
Reserve even though the national constitution guarantees the
Bushmen the right to live there in perpetuity. As of October 2005,
the government has resumed its policy of forcing all Bushmen off
their lands in the Game Reserve, using armed police and threats of
violence or death.[1]
Many of the involuntarily displaced Bushmen live in squalid
resettlement camps and some have resorted to prostitution and alcoholism, while about
250 others remain or have surreptitiously returned to the Kalahari
to resume their independent lifestyle.[2]

“How can you have a Stone
Age creatures continue to exist in the age of computers?“ asked
Botswana’s president Festus Mogae.[3] A
report released by the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemns Botswana's treatment
of the 'Bushmen' as racist.[4][5]

Ivory
Coast

In the past recent years the Ivory Coast has seen a resurgence
in ethnic tribal hatred and religious intolerance. In addition to
the many victims among the various tribes of the northern and
southern regions of the country that have perished in the ongoing
conflict, foreigners residing or visiting the Ivory Coast have also
been subjected to violent attacks. According to a report by Human
Rights Watch, the Ivory Coast government is guilty of fanning
ethnic hatred for its own political ends.[6]

In 2004, the Young Patriots of Abidjan, strongly nationalist organisation, rallied by the
State media, plundered possessions of foreign nationals in Abidjan. Calls for violence
against whites and non-Ivorians were broadcast on national radio
and TV after the Young Patriots seized control of its offices.
Rapes, beatings, and murders of white expatriates and local Lebanese followed.
Thousands of expatriates and Lebanese fled. The attacks drew
international condemnation.[7][8]

Madagascar

Ethnic tensions in Madagascar often produce violent conflict
between the highlanders and coastal peoples. The Merina people in
particular are often the targets of violence especially during
political campaigns to elect a new president.[9]

Mauritania

Slavery in Mauritania persists
despite its abolition in 1980 and affects the descendants of black
Africans abducted into slavery before generations, who live now in Mauritania as "black Moors" or haratin and who partially still serve the
"white Moors", or bidhan, as slaves. The practice of
slavery in Mauritania is most dominant within the traditional upper
class of the Moors. For centuries, the so-called Haratin lower
class, mostly poor black Africans living in rural areas, have been
considered natural slaves by these Moors. Social attitudes have
changed among most urban Moors, but in rural areas, the ancient
divide is still very alive.[10]

The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned
people) are descendants of the SanhajaBerbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes
who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. Many descendants of the Beni
Hassan tribes today still adhere to the supremacist ideology of
their ancestors. This ideology has led to oppression,
discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in the
Mauritania.[11]

According to some estimates, as many to 600,000 black
Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of
them used as bonded labour.[12]
Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.[13]

Morocco

Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain during the reign of Berber dynasty of
Almohads in the 12th century. Almohads gave
a choice of either death or conversion to Islam, or exile. Some, such the family of Maimonides, fled east to
more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward
to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[14][15]
Jewish population were confined to mellahs in Morocco beginning from the 15th century. In
cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified
gateway. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages
inhabited solely by the Jews.[16]

Niger

In October 2006, Niger
announced that it would deport to Chad the so called Diffa Arabs: Arabs living in
the Diffa region of eastern Niger.[17] This
population numbered about 150,000.[18] While
the government was rounding Arabs in preparation for the
deportation, two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government
forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government
had eventually suspended a controversial decision to deport
Arabs.[19][20]

In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study has found
that more than 800,000 people are still slaves, almost 8% of the
population.[21
] .[22]
Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally
criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International
and Nigerian human-rights group, Timidria.[23]

Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are
born into bondage,
is traditionally practiced by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic
groups. The slave masters are mostly from the lighter-skinned nomadic
tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs.[24] It is
especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west
Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria. In the
region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated
that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed
of slaves.[25]

Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their black slaves
during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main
source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave
markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.[21
][26]

Rwanda

South
Africa

Racism is still a fact of life in South Africa.[27] The
end of Apartheid might have
removed the legal framework allowing institutionalised racism, but racism in South Africa both
predates and encompasses more than just the institutionalised
racism of apartheid.

Colonial
racism

The establishment of the Dutch East India Company
settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 brought
with it the established slave labor practices of the company.[28] Many
of these slaves were imported from the companies more established
settlement in India and the East Indies.[29]
Slavery was by no mean just restricted to the European slave trade.
During the Difaqane the Zulu under Shaka overrun many smaller times and enslaved
them.[30]

Even Mohandas Gandhi who worked
to eradicate racism and in particular racism that affected the
Indian communities in South Africa, was not immune to racism during
this period. In one of his early articles for the Indian
Opinion he writes:

Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised - the convicts even more so.
They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like
animals.

Apartheid
racism

Post
apartheid racism

Sudan

In the Sudan, black African captives in the civil war
were often enslaved, and female prisoners
were often used sexually,[34] with
their Arab
captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission.[35]
According to CBS news,
slaves have been sold for US$50 apiece.[36] In
September, 2000, the U.S. State
Department alleged that "the Sudanese government's support of
slavery and its continued
military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in
part to the victims' religious beliefs."[37] Jok
Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount
University, states that the abduction of women and children of
the south is slavery by any
definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter
is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.[38]

The United States government's Sudan Peace Act of October 21, 2002
accused Sudan of genocide in an
ongoing civil war which has
cost more than 2,000,000 lives and has displaced more than
4,000,000 people since the war started in 1983.[39]

In 2004, it became widely known that there was an organised campaign by Janjaweed militias
(nomadic Arab
shepherds with the support of Sudanese government troops) to get
rid of 80 black African groups from the Darfur region of western Sudan. These peoples
include the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit.[42][43]

Mukesh Kapila (United Nations humanitarian coordinator)
is quoted as saying: "This is more than just a conflict. It is an
organised attempt [by Khartoum] to do away with a group of people.
The only difference between Rwanda [in 1994] and Darfur now is the
numbers of dead, murdered, tortured and raped involved"[44][45][46][47] A
July 14, 2007 article notes that in the past two months up to
75,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger crossed the border into
Darfur. Most have been relocated by the Sudanese government to
former villages of displaced non-Arab people. Some 2.5 million have
now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese
troops and Janjaweed militia.[48]

Tanzania

Prior to the 16th century, the bulk of slaves exported from
Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port on this trade.
Arab slave traders differed from European ones in that they would
often conduct raiding expeditions themselves, sometimes penetrating
deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market
greatly preferred the purchase of female slaves over male ones.
Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, and under
Omani Arabs in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were
passing through the city each year.[49]

"To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility.... We
passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on
the path. [Onlookers] said an Arab who passed early that morning
had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her,
because she was unable to walk any longer. We passed a woman tied
by the neck to a tree and dead.... We came upon a man dead from
starvation.... The strangest disease I have seen in this country
seems really to be broken heartedness, and it attacks free men who
have been captured and made slaves."

Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before
ever reaching the slave markets of Zanzibar.[50][51][52][53]

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12,
1964 put an end to the local Arab dynasty. As many as 17,000 Arabs
were massacred by the descendants of black African slaves,
according to reports, and thousands of others were detained and
their property either confiscated or destroyed.[54][55]

Tunisia

The accession of the Almohade dynasty to the throne of the Maghreb provinces in 1146
proved very disastrous to the Jews of Tunis. Jews as well as Christians were
compelled either to embrace Islam or to leave the country. Abd al-Mu'min's
successors pursued the same course, and their severe measures
resulted either in emigration or in forcible conversions. Soon
becoming suspicious of the sincerity of the new converts, the
Almohades compelled them to wear a special garb, with a yellow
cloth for a head-covering.[56]

Mistranslations of Arab scholars and geographers from this time
period have lead many to attribute certain racist attitudes that
weren't prevalent until the 18th and 19th century to writings made
centuries ago.[57]
Although bias against those of very black complexion existed in the
Arab world in the 15th century it didn't have as much stigma as it
later would. Older translations of Ibn Khaldun, for example in The Negro land of the Arabs
Examined and Explained which was written in 1841 gives excerpts
of older translations that were not part of later colonial
propaganda and show black Africans in a generally positive
light.

When the conquest of the West (by the Arabs) was completed,
and merchants began to penetrate into the interior, they saw no
nation of the Blacks so mighty as Ghanah, the dominions of which
extended westward as far as the Ocean. The King's court was kept in
the city of Ghanah, which, according to the author of the Book of
Roger (El Idrisi), and the author of the Book of Roads and Realms
(El Bekri), is divided into two parts, standing on both banks of
the Nile, and ranks among the largest and most populous cities of
the world. The people of Ghanah had for neighbours, on the east, a
nation, which, according to historians, was called Susu; after
which came another named Mali; and after that another known by the
name of Kaukau ; although some people prefer a different
orthography, and write this name Kagho. The last-named nation was
followed by a people called Tekrur. The people of Ghanah declined
in course of time, being overwhelmed or absorbed by the
Molaththemun (or muffled people;that is, the Morabites), who,
adjoining them on the north towards the Berber country, attacked
them, and, taking possession of their territory, compelled them to
embrace the Mohammedan religion. The people of Ghanah, being
invaded at a later period by the Susu, a nation of Blacks in their
neighbourhood, were exterminated, or mixed with other Black
nations. [[58]]

Ibn Khaldun suggests a link between the decline of Ghana and
rise of the Almoravids. however, there is little evidence of there
actually being an Almoravid conquest of Ghana [[59]] [60]

The 1968 Committee on "Africanization in Commerce and Industry"
in Uganda made far-reaching Indophobic proposals. A system of work
permits and trade licenses was introduced in 1969 in order to
restrict the role of Indians in economic and professional
activities. Indians were segregated and discriminated against in
all walks of life. After Amin came to power, he exploited these
divisions to spread propaganda against Indians involving stereotyping and scapegoating the
Indian minority. Indians were stereotyped as "only traders" and so
"inbred" to their profession. Indians were attacked as "dukawallas"
(an occupational term that degenerated into an anti-Indian slur
during Amin's time).[61].

In the 1970s Uganda and
other East African nations implemented racist policies that
targeted the Asian population of the region. Uganda under Idi Amin's leadership was
particularly most virulent in its anti-Asian policies. In August
1972, Idi Amin declared what he called an "economic war", a set of
policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by
Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly Indians born in the country, whose
ancestors had come to Uganda when the country was still a British
colony. [2][3] Indians were
stereotyped as "greedy, conniving", without any racial identity or
loyalty but "always cheating, conspiring and plotting" to subvert
Uganda. Amin used this propaganda to justify a campaign of
"de-Indianization", eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic
cleansing of Uganda's Indian minority.[61].

India had refused to accept
them.[62] Most
of the expelled Indians settled in Britain.[63] The
forced expulsion of Uganda's entire Asian population attests to the
persecution of Asian peoples residing in the country at the time.
Today, Asian/Indian residents of Uganda continue to face
marginalization being given an inferior status.